Juan of the Dead

by Jacalyn Boggs

  I grabbed the clothes that Leahonia picked out for me and unfolded them. Very Mexican in fashion, and I actually liked the look. "What did you do on your vacation? I died in Mexico and went native!" At least the bright colors might give my skin some semblance of life.

  I towel dried my hair as best I could. It promised ultimate frizziness upon drying. I glanced around the bathroom but saw no product to tame my crazy locks. Anything was better than the ultra-wild woman hair I sported before. Picking up my thrashed clothing, I tried to fold it somewhat for ease in carrying and slung the towel over my arm. With one last glance in the mirror, I decided I looked a million times better. Now the simple sight of me wouldn't make people quake in fear or turn to stone.

  I opened the door and left the bathroom. I followed the sounds from the common area of the house and sure enough I found Leahonia in the kitchen. I cleared my throat.

  “Excuse me? Leahonia?”

  She turned towards me with a smile on her face. “Señorita, you look better.”

  “I feel better. Thank you like a million times over.” I really wished I could do something to show her how great she was. Instead I just stood there awkwardly holding my torn up and filthy clothes, unsure what to do next.

  “Is nothing. Glad to help.” She seemed so sincere and warm. I couldn't say that I'd be so brave as to let someone I didn't know into my home. Or generous. I guess that was the difference in America. We looked at everyone as a possible serial killer. You never knew when your charity case could end up being someone who enjoyed slicing and dicing people for an afternoon snack. So instead you just kept your charity to safe check-writing to your organization of choice.

  She held out her hands, so I passed her the wet towel. She beckoned for my clothes as well and I handed them over. She disappeared with the items and I remained where I was, not sure what to do.

  She returned. “I clean those later. See if I get them better. You hungry?”

  No, I wasn't hungry. Which was kind of starting to worry me. How long since she brought Jon that food he ate? Surely, it was time for another meal and how was I to turn away her food? Normal living folk ate, and if I didn't eat would that offend her? Or would it clue her in to my peculiar situation?

  I shook my head. “No, I'm not hungry. I'm fine.” Maybe I'd get off lucky and she'd think I was just anorexic. How sick was my life if I actually wanted someone thinking my worst problem was anorexia?

  At some point I needed to figure out what to do about this whole no hunger thing. And prepare for when my body did need something. I understood the basic principles of biology. You ate and that got turned into energy to help you keep going. Sure, was a nutshell summary, but it's just the way it was. What was powering my body if it wasn't regular food?

  At some point my avoidance of food would become a lot more obvious. Eventually,

  Leahonia was going to start putting two and two together. She already had legends on her side.

  “You not hungry? You sure?” She looked more than a little worried.

  I definitely needed to work on an explanation. Maybe Jon would have some pearls of wisdom. Again, the lack of not thinking ahead. Coming up with a believable reason for me to not eat instead of playing mad scientist.

  “No, I'm fine. Maybe I'll be hungry later.” I tried really hard to not make that into a question. It could happen, and when I did, I prayed for something palatable.

  She looked a bit skeptical but bought it. For now. This would become a problem in another few hours. It was pretty obvious that I didn't eat at Jon's. Did he even have food at his place? How often did she bring him food?

  She turned back to her work in the kitchen leaving me with nothing to do. There was no way I could find my way back to Jon's on my own. I know we followed a path of sorts, but I also knew that my inner navigation system was only equipped with the useless geography of a mall.

  I just stood there, wondering what to do next. Did I offer to help out Leahonia?

  Ask about returning to Jon's? I know she offered me a place to crash for the night, but the day was fairly early still. While I could get sleepy at any time, I wasn't betting on it coming soon. I'd prefer to go back to Jon's where I could discuss a game plan with him. Namely a game plan for getting me home.

  “Excuse me? Leahonia?”

  “Si, Señorita?” She didn't turn to look at me.

  “Um, it's still early. How do I get back to Jon's? I think I need to talk to him some more.” I couldn't think what to say next. There was no real tie between Jon and myself, and I felt we'd made that pretty clear earlier. We needed a better cover story.

  “I take you back.”

  She looked busy with her household chores. "Are you sure?"

  "Is no problem."

  So, we returned, following the rough path towards Jon's. I tried to pay attention to the turns and branches, but it didn't stick in my head. I needed to get back to the city where I could use the nice grid system when walking in town.

  The walk through the warm afternoon didn't feel like end of October weather to me. Being from Virginia, I was used to a little more chill in the air. It was pleasant, nice weather for a walk. I'd never been much for walking, unless it was through a parking lot. Blame my new post-death enlightenment for actually enjoying the whole nature walk thing.

  c

  chapter thirteen

  We knocked on Jon's door. From inside we heard a muffled sound that could pass for a “Come in.” Leahonia opened the door. Jon squatted in one corner of room, sifting through things. I wasn't sure what he was doing, other than enacting tornado fury on his poor residence.

  “Jon?”

  He sounded rather distracted when he answered me. “Yes?”

  “What the hell have you been doing?” Why bother beating around the bush, especially if it meant getting any details he may have stumbled upon?

  “Research...”

  All I ever wanted! One-word answers that smacked of the obvious and told me nothing! Research? And here, I thought he was having square dancing lessons.

  I grumbled something rude under my breath and heard a quiet snicker from Leahonia. Obviously, she felt the same way and wasn't too surprised by our little absent-minded professor. “I leave now. I be back later for you?” I'm sure she didn't want to stick around here. Given the neatness of her home, I bet this place made her toes sweat.

  “Thank you, again.” I still felt like no amount of words would let her know just how I felt about her charity. She slipped out the door, closing it behind her. I waded through the piles of papers and books littering the former walkways to stand over Jon.

  “Hey, Earth to Jon. What's the story?” I said.

  He peered up from the papers he held in both hands. “Oh, yeah, hi. Sorry.”

  He stood and looked me in the eye. There was a thrill that he finally recognized my presence, but something in the way he looked at me put me on edge as well.

  “So, I repeat. What's the story?” I continued. Details! A girl needs some details!

  “I thought to look up Day of the Dead histories and myths. I had already looked at most everything I knew of for the ceremony before, well, performing it. But I hadn't thought about Day of the Dead traditions.”

  Ramble, ramble, ramble. “Got it. Day of the Dead. Did you find weird and freaky stuff that could resemble my little scenario here or what?”

  “Yes and no. It seems that each indigenous tribe had their own personal views on exactly how to honor their dead. There were a lot of commonalities, but each little cluster kind of went their own way with it.”

  Did he just say the same thing twice? “Same basics, differing practices? So...”

  He pushed his glasses up his nose and swallowed. “Right. So, you have one tribe that thought that if they honored their dead, those that went before them would protect them. Another believed that the spirits of those gone would bless their tribe with a good crop or prosperity for the next year. So, you see, they would be slightly similar, but sligh
tly different.”

  “Right, cuz protection from starvation is always good. Kind of the same thought at any rate – the dead spirits would totally take care of your needs. Rock on. What about, like, bringing them back?”

  “There was a story of someone who successfully reanimated the dead. Not like warriors or legions, but the details were really sketchy. The person may not have really been dead. It seems unclear.”

  “The story was the person supposedly died but then came back?”

  “Pretty much. Of course, this was like 800 years ago. So, with no real coroner or medical death certificate, it could be argued that the person was maybe in a coma or something. The people may have thought he was dead when really, he wasn't. There are enough things that mimic death that could have happened.”

  “Like you know, you're like dying, but get CPR so you're saved. But I guess they didn't have CPR back then, so people would think it was like raising the dead?”

  “Exactly. You don't need magic, just science that hadn't been discovered yet. The story is this guy was dead for three days. And then he rose and was supposedly back from the dead, reanimated by a shaman type person.”

  Three days? Sounds awful biblical to me. “Uh huh, three days dead? Well I wasn't down and out for three days.”

  Now look, I liked my fellow man. Sometimes. I'm not so proud to think that I could give them eternal salvation or any of that other Bible thumping type stuff. Of course, the thought did make me wonder: if I was now not-dead what did that mean for my soul? Of course, there was the big black nothing I experienced between the quake and the time I woke up in Ye Olde Temple too. Not a thought I'd like to think about, so I shoved it to the back of my head where it could just nag me later.

  “No, you weren't,” he continued. “There wasn't much information after that. I guess the record was incomplete or they just figured not to include more.”

  Rather rude of them, if you asked me. How could they not plan for giving me information? Humph. That's the thoughtlessness you got from these ancient people. They just never thought about future generations needing information.

  “So, nothing like he raised the dead, healed the sick, any of that Jesus stuff? Cuz you know...”

  “I know. There's definitely an interesting history with ancient cultures and numerology. Three pops up in a lot of places, as does seven and forty. Not just in the Bible. Across various regions and histories. Fascinating. Even in modern America, do you know how many people think seven is their lucky number?”

  “No idea. Everyone I know thinks it is their lucky number, so I'd bet a lot.”

  “Exactly.”

  We both grew quiet. We still didn't know any more than we did earlier. This might’ve just been one of those learn the ropes as you go along situations. Old legends came from somewhere. The tales of many undead soldiers really didn't do it for me., It was so hard to believe. If you could send troops of dead folk out instead of sacrificing your living kin, who on earth would really stop it?

  If the undead soldiers took out whole villages, isn't that considered collateral damage in a war? There's no compassion in war.

  It kind of creeped me out that anyone might have that sort of power. What if that had been passed down through the centuries? Could someone today actually do this? How would anyone survive? Note to self, don't say a cross word to anyone in Central America lest I become responsible for the legions of zombies rising and declaring war on America. Undead illegal aliens sounded like a pretty bad problem.

  “Well, I have something for you.” I planned to tell him about holding my breath in the bath.

  “Hmmm?” He seemed distracted still as he looked back at the papers in his hands.

  “While I was bathing, I went under the water and I'm not sure how long I was under there, but I didn't feel like... like I needed to breathe. What do you make of that?”

  He peered at me over the rims of his glasses. “What?”

  “I said that I'm not so sure that I need to breathe. Or at least not as much as before.”

  “Interesting.” He shuffled his papers into one hand and went to where we'd previously sat. Now both seats were completely covered with things. He put the papers onto a pile and looked about, almost confused.

  “What?” I asked. I was getting tired of that, honestly.

  “Well, I thought I had something around here, but I'm not sure where I put it. It was here. Or, I thought it was here….”

  “Again, organization. That's what you need. Maybe you could find things easier.”

  “I told you,” Jon shrugged. “I can find things. It's crazy, but it works.”

  “Except now you can't find something. You know, books on a bookcase, that sort of thing. Really easy to find things in a library you know. And you could do the same with all these notes.”

  “Maybe, but usually this works for me. I've just looked at so much while you were gone, and now I've forgotten...” He sort of trailed off and I wondered if he thought of what it was he wanted. Since he didn't move, I guessed not.

  “Anything I can do to help?” Like hit you upside the head and knock some sense into you? Hire an army of home organizers?

  “I don't know. Maybe it'll come to me.” He clapped his hands together. “Well, let's see what we can do with the whole breathing thing. You breathing now?”

  Was I breathing now? I don't know, it's not like I walk around thinking, 'breathe in, breathe out' all the time. “I'm talking. So, I guess air is getting to my vocal cords. Anything more...” I shrugged.

  “True. I guess the bath thing made it easier for noticing. I'm pretty sure you'd notice if you were trying to breathe underwater.”

  “You think? What would be my first clue? The water choking me or...”

  He grimaced at my sarcasm. “Hey, I'm just saying.”

  “Look, it's just something you do. I haven't consciously thought about it. Frankly I've tried to pay attention but it's kind of weird to focus on. Eventually you make yourself nuts going 'am I breathing because I'm forcing myself to or because I need to?'”

  He nodded. “Point taken. We could just have you hold your breath till you turn blue. It sounds childish, but it would answer the question.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a barrel of fun. Let me get in line for that."

  “Probably not important to know how long you can go without oxygen. I mean, it could be forever. Or until you needed to talk again, as you pointed out the need of air over the larynx. Unless, of course, you are planning to go somewhere without air.”

  I was more a lay on the side of the pool than a get into the water gal. And since I was pretty sure personal shoppers were low on the list for a ticket into outer space, I was probably good. What need would I have for holding my breath for an indeterminate length of time? I shrugged again.

  “Not particularly in my plans. But hey, what part of this week has gone according to my plans? If I get bored, I'll check it out. I just thought I'd mention it.”

  He stepped towards me. “No other problems that you've encountered?”

  “Not really, just that one. And that I'm still not hungry or thirsty.”

  Another step closer to me and then his voice was soft, almost shy. “I see that the bath water did you no harm. You look... well... amazing.”

  My stomach flip-flopped. It felt good to hear that. Especially since I might be clean, but I was still running the natural look with no makeup, hair product, or any accessories. Best I had was my trusty Jimmy Choos. Thank goodness for Jimmy! I'd hate to think what this would do to my cred.

  My voice came out rather throaty in my response. “Thanks.”

  He reached for me, and touched my arm lightly, running his fingers down it to my hand. His skin felt so warm against mine, the touch so soft. Despite myself, I knew I was one step closer to falling for this guy who was so not my type. Maybe it was some sort of Nightingale effect.

  I might have been dead, I might have not looked my best without my usual accouterments, but he st
ill thought I looked great. How many people could say that when they were dead? The slightly romantic side of me wondered why I had to die to meet a guy like this. Where was he when I was alive?

  We stood there for a few minutes, his hand touching mine. Neither of us seemed to want to break the spell encircling itself around us. I peered up through my eyelashes and saw him looking at me, as though he could see right to my soul. A shiver ran up my spine at the intimacy.

  He let out a breath and pulled his hand away. His movement broke the spell and the world rushed in on us once more. I told myself it could never work. We came from two different worlds, a gap that grew ever larger with my death. He was some brainy, nerdy guy and I was a gorgeous, fashion conscious dead girl. How could we ever hope to make something work?

  People said opposites attract. I supposed you couldn't get much more opposite than living him and dead me. Perhaps our souls were entwined in a way neither of us could guess, causing his actions. It seemed fate dealt us a bad hand, not letting us find one another before my untimely demise. If that were the case, at any rate.

  His thoughts must have been on the same track as mine. “I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me. I just wonder... why things happened the way they did...”

  It was my turn to cut him off with a nervous shrug. “What do you mean?”

  “Just seems that... I wish that... that you'd have not died before I...”

  Poor guy looked so uncomfortable. He probably never talked to women like this. What man really did? I'm pretty sure the Testosterone Police would take away his manhood card for being so mushy instead of macho.

  “I get it,” I agreed. We were silent once more. I don't know what came over me, but in the next second there I was, kissing him. Full on kissing, right on the lips, hard and needy.

  He acted surprised for only a few seconds before he embraced me, kissing me back, his mouth just as wanting as mine. I could feel it inside of me, the need for him. The ties that bound us were far more than just one born out of his saving my life. Finally, our lips broke apart.